Interpolic

What´s funny? It´s true! Shit start - AGAIN Go support another club, you're not cut out to support ours.

He isn't a winger in this league. He'll never win the one-on-one battle consistently. I'm not sure he needs to. He'd just be bullied out of it. I much prefer him through the middle when we need to make something happen. I'd 100% prefer him in the middle too, but second to that I'd prefer him on the pitch rather than inferior players being there. I think it's worth a shot anyway.

He hasn't been given enough time on the wing to work out whether he's useless there, I think we'd benefit from his delivery from wide positions and it's worth trying. Certainly when the alternative is Jonas, who for all I love him is looking a bit spent at the minute.

He isn't a winger in this league. He'll never win the one-on-one battle consistently. I'm not sure he needs to.

You say that like there's a hope in hell of Jonas being dropped for any league game with the personnel currently available.

I don't see why we've totally counted Marveaux out as a winger, I know his defensive work ain't great but surely some games you're not that arsed about that.

With some he can't lose either. and some can look at each situation without going either "f***ing c*** Pardew f***ed it up again!!11" or "Howay he got us 5th last season so he iz the best manager ever so shut up!!1". Some need to stop thinking they know more about Ben Arfa's fitness than the medical staff though. As I said there wasn't much complaint on Thursday about his inclusion. Who thinks they know more than our medical staff? There were plenty of comments about how he "should be getting 20 minutes in this game" etc.. Can't actually be bothered to get into it tbh as there will be the usual "when was this said", "well yeah but when else" nonsense. Had my rant, will try and ignore the inevitable moans every time he doesn't start till the end of the season You seem to be waiting for the slightest hint of a moan and jumping on it, you'll send yourself loopy doing that. You'll get all kinds of opinions on this forum, some of them will be cynical and/or untrusting of Pardew, it's something you need to deal with in the same way everyone else needs to deal with reading stuff they don't like. It's not like there are hundreds of people shouting and balling about the Ben Arfa stuff. Sorry but people having a rant about things they don't even really know about (See the Mike Williamson thread when some paper said he was in line to start against Stoke) annoys me, a lot. The Ben Arfa thing is a particularly sore subject given the way it went on last season. I'll be good now Ah man, you don't want to know my opinion on last season then. I don't think things are as black and white as people like to make out, it doesn't have to be that Pardew played it perfectly or totally fucked it. He could have totally fucked it by playing him for 90 minutes every game and forcing a knock, or he could have fucked it by leaving him out for the entire season (which at one point wasn't looking that unlikely). My view is that I don't think he played him enough before the Sunderland game, partly because he didn't know how to use him. This season he did know how to use him, and realised he's one of his most important players or in other words one that can get him out of jail. I think that's the reason that he rushed him back for the Fulham game. Now we're seeing a different approach, where he's trying to ease him in for fear of fucking up the situation, but that's why I found it so odd that he started the other night. Like TT says, if it was simply because Cisse was out then it was the wrong decision. Pretty sure there were quotes from Pardew a few days previous saying there was fuck-all chance he'd take HBA to Russia.

We've played well more often than not since the new players came in, I think we'll play well again and win. We have improved, I agree. I'm not sure I agree that we've played well, especially when you look at the weapons at our disposal. Compared to the majority of the season it's been fucking liquid football.

With some he can't lose either. and some can look at each situation without going either "f***ing c*** Pardew f***ed it up again!!11" or "Howay he got us 5th last season so he iz the best manager ever so shut up!!1". Some need to stop thinking they know more about Ben Arfa's fitness than the medical staff though. As I said there wasn't much complaint on Thursday about his inclusion. Who thinks they know more than our medical staff? There were plenty of comments about how he "should be getting 20 minutes in this game" etc.. Can't actually be bothered to get into it tbh as there will be the usual "when was this said", "well yeah but when else" nonsense. Had my rant, will try and ignore the inevitable moans every time he doesn't start till the end of the season You seem to be waiting for the slightest hint of a moan and jumping on it, you'll send yourself loopy doing that. You'll get all kinds of opinions on this forum, some of them will be cynical and/or untrusting of Pardew, it's something you need to deal with in the same way everyone else needs to deal with reading stuff they don't like. It's not like there are hundreds of people shouting and balling about the Ben Arfa stuff.

We've played well more often than not since the new players came in, I think we'll play well again and win.

FTR I did consider complaining about his inclusion on Thursday but thought I'd be laughed out of the forum. I was very surprised that was the game he was back for though. Anyway, more important matters - the team. We shouldn't need Ben Arfa to beat this lot, hoping to see a good performance today.

With some he can't lose either. and some can look at each situation without going either "fucking cunt Pardew fucked it up again!!11" or "Howay he got us 5th last season so he iz the best manager ever so shut up!!1". Some need to stop thinking they know more about Ben Arfa's fitness than the medical staff though. As I said there wasn't much complaint on Thursday about his inclusion. Nobody is saying any of this stuff man FFS. People are just saying it was a strange game to bring him back for. It was strange that he started when he hadn't been fit enough to play 20 minutes prior to that, it was strange that his comeback was in that weather, on that surface, miles away from Newcastle.

Are you for real, Jon?

If that's the reason Ben Arfa started in Russia then criticism of Pardew would be entirely justified.

It did seem a very strange game to bring him back for but you'd hope it's just a knock and nothing serious. If it's a similar setback to the Fulham one then people are justified to start going mad and asking questions. We know nowt yet though, he might be starting.

We really should be fine without Ben Arfa so I'm not that fussed, would be nice if he's on the bench to bring on for 20 minutes though.

He kissed me on the cheek once for letting him in front of him in the taxi queue outside The Gate actually, forgot about that.

Must you be such pricks? Aye, judgemental narrowminded pricks normally act like judgemental narrowminded pricks, so yeah - they must. Hold on, he's narrow minded, but he's not allowed to have a contrary opinion? He's judgemental for calling him an arsehole, but it's ok for him to be called a prick? Double-standards somewhat. No one can be a cock these days, it's always a syndrome or an addiction or they didn't get enough cuddles from mommy or some bollocks. If he was a nobody who'd lived two doors down that was claiming dole and beating his wife; I wonder how sympathetic people would be. I'm saying I'm not sure how people can be so full of anger towards a bloke who's always seemed a nice (but pretty stupid) bloke and is quite clearly ill, which is what we're talking about. The guy played football for 15-20 years and has fallen apart since, it's sad to see and people calling him an "arsehole" etc leave me bemused. And the contrary opinions are "fuck him" and "always been an arsehole", you do realise that? It's not really an opinion, it's just demonstration of an unwillingness to try to understand alcoholism and mental illness.

Might as well tie players' legs together then, if they can't put their foot out for a ball for fear of someone coming out of nowhere and getting kicked in the face/chest.

It's depressing that a player gets dropped for one game and you get all this pointless speculation about his future. I couldn't care less about whether he stays or goes.

I'm not sure if I buy into Ferguson winning the tactical battle, it assumes Mourinho didn't have any tricks up his sleeve (which by experience is a foolish assumption to make) and the way Man Utd immediately capitulated after the sending off was really quite something. They went from having the better of the game to last-gasp defending in a heartbeat. Ferguson won the tactical battle up until the sending off but games last 90 minutes, Champions League ties last at least 180 minutes and Mourinho ended up going through, as his teams so often do. There's every chance Real would've went through without the sending off, they just needed a goal to tip the balance. They didn't have the chance to prove they could do it 11 vs 11, but this "Ferguson won the tactical battle, he was just undone by a harsh sending off" business just seems an attempt to preserve/enhance the reputation of 2 brilliant managers. I didn't think it was a sending off btw, otherwise they might as well ban the overhead kick in case someone's head gets in the way.

Boooooooooooooooo. Boooooooooooooo. Boooooooooooooooo. I mean Boooooooooo-arnes. Boooooo-arnes.

Must you be such pricks? Aye, judgemental narrowminded pricks normally act like judgemental narrowminded pricks, so yeah - they must.

Well they are through on a score draw. but you'd think if we were favourites to go win the game we'd be favorites to go through. on the match odds the draw is quite the outsider. What about the odds for Anzhi/draw compared to us winning? That's what you should be looking at. If we are only slight favourites to win, then I wouldn't think it's weird at all that they are favourites to go through with the away goal rule being the way it is. and there it hits a problem as i can find odds to lay newcastle but not specifically a newcastle defeat or 0-0 draw (which in itself wouldn't knock us out) Us to win is 2.52 = 39.6% chance of us going through. The other way we can go through is after a 0-0 (at 9 on betfair, or an 11.1% chance). If you think being at home for ET & pens would give us a slight advantage (e.g. 60% chance of getting through after 0-0) that would leave us with a 46.3% chance of getting through, or odds of 2.16 to their 1.85 assuming no margin. I honestly think this might be the second worst post on the site ever after that story Inter stuck up earlier. I need to have a serious fucking word with myself.

I only saw the 2nd half because the people at my work are fucking tossers, but thought it was a decent half to watch with us looking quite threatening. I gather the first half was pure bilge then?